Important updates about your new workshop:
New times, new space, new pricing

Opening our new, bigger workshop hub has been a dream come true for us. Over the years, our two community workshops in Leith and Portobello became a vital part of the local communities, and watching friendships forms, skills grow and projects come to life around these spaces has been one of the most rewarding parts of what we do.

Running two workshops did come with its own challenges, though. Not only the cost of spaces, but also maintaining machines across two sites. Opening one larger, better-equipped hub means we can do everything we did before, and more.

Our goal is for Edinburgh Tool Library to be a resilient organisation rooted in our city’s third sector ecosystem – one that can weather difficult funding periods and keep serving this community for years to come. To do that, we need to make changes to how the workshop runs.

What’s changing with workshop access?

Access to the community workshop will still be included in your membership. However, rather than being included as a free perk, sessions will now move to a pay-as-you-go booking. This ensures costs of machine maintenance, rent and electricity are covered, keeping the workshop a strong reliable resource for the community.

How much is a pay-as-you-go open workshop session?

Each open workshop session gives you 3 hours of dedicated time for you to practice, explore and work on your own woodworking projects. It’s a great way to get hands-on with bigger machines and connect with fellow Tooligans to share ideas and skills along the way.

A standard membership session is £10
A concession membership session is £3

+ a Humanitix booking fee – We’re moving our booking platform from Eventbrite to Humanitix. Humanitix is on of the most ethical booking platforms, where 100% of their profits are dedicated to charity.

When are open workshop sessions?

The open workshop sessions will be on:

Thursday 5 – 8pm
Friday 1 – 4pm | 5 – 8pm
Saturday 1 – 4pm

Do I need to be a member?

Yes! Access to the open workshop sessions is part of an Edinburgh Tool Library membership.
Becoming a member is easy, and gives you access to over 3000 tools in our inventory, open workshop sessions, 10% of all classes, and a community full of knowledge and skills to learn from.

Sign up for a membership HERE

What do I need to get started?

You’ll need to complete our safety induction before attending your first session. In this induction we walk you through all the machines and how to use them safely. This ensures that everyone is on the same page and is also a lovely way to get introduced to the community and the ETL ethos.

If you’re new to woodworking and want to build your confidence before diving into your own projects. Our Basic Home DIY course is the perfect starting point. This 3-week course will give you all the skills you need to get you going and completing it automatically counts as your safety induction.

For members who were previously inducted at one of our old workshops, don’t worry! For the first two months, every session will start with a 30 minute refresher to get everyone comfortable in the new space.

We’re so excited to welcome you into this new chapter. See you in the workshop!

Meet Richard Wright – cherished volunteer at Edinburgh Tool Library’s Portobello branch, who is a tool sharpening guru and founder of the Retrofixers!

Retrofit & Tool Renovation: Meet ETL volunteer Richard Wright! 3

Hello Richard! Tell us how you first got involved with Edinburgh Tool Library?

In summer 2018 Porty Tool Library had an opening event and I went along out of curiosity. The place was full of timber and other interesting stuff, and I met Chris Hellawell for the first time. He converted me in just a minute! Not only do I live only a 7-minute walk away, but I also discovered that ETL was perfect for someone with a lot of tools, limited space and no workshop as I could donate stuff and still use it! I never imagined volunteering when I joined, but I loved the workshops and the community spirit so much that it wasn’t long before I became a ‘Tooligan’. To start with I helped at open workshops as well as the library, but felt more suited to library shifts as there’s always something useful to do when not talking to visiting members.

Last year, you and some other ETL volunteers started the Retrofixers – can you tell us what that’s all about?

We are building a community of volunteers who want to learn, and help others make homes more energy efficient through DIY elements of Retrofit. We go to each other’s houses in groups of up to 5 or 6 to do draught proofing and simple insulation such as loft insulation, thermal blinds or secondary glazing, and the important thing is to have fun while we’re doing this. The host of the day provides a meal and refreshments, as well as any materials, and agrees to participate in other retrofixer ‘parties’! Most of us have some DIY skills, but that’s not essential as it’s also a learning opportunity. Some are good at caulking gaps and others can sew or fit heavy curtains, and anyone can squidge DraughtEx between floor boards as long as you can kneel! Ultimately, we want to have fun and build community while reducing our carbon footprint and saving money all at the same time!

What’s next for the Retrofixers?

With regard to the Retrofixers, we are eager for more people to join our community – we currently have 26 members and there’s plenty of room for more! Join up and embrace the opportunity to build your skills, meet new people and save the planet. See our Linktree for more info.

We have also recently got together with HeatHack – an organisation focused on helping community buildings save energy. One way they do this is by logging temperature and humidity over a period of time in all the different occupied spaces throughout a community building to see how it matches occupancy patterns. The sensors required for such an exercise are unaffordable off the shelf, but can be made up from electronic components for less than £10 each. We hope to help them in this task by making some sensors at the Tool Library, and who knows what we might learn from this!

We also hear you’re ETL’s sharpening guru! How did you get into that?

My ETL workshop induction was with Alan Cowie when I think we first talked about sharpening, and it wasn’t long before Alan encouraged me to get more involved in this. At the time I had already been sharpening tools at local community events on behalf of Portobello Timebank and we started a combined arrangement. I also took on the maintenance of ETL planes and chisels for the libraries and workshops, and in September 2020 we launched the ETL tool renovation & sharpening service, advertised to members and the general public. As a team of three (with other ETL volunteers Pam and Sandy) we have now given tender loving care to 500+ tools and raised nearly £2k for ETL! We do this during library shifts when it’s quiet and it takes about a week before the tools are ready for collection. We mostly deal with garden tools but also woodworking tools. I have a particular soft spot for quality Japanese secateurs!

I’d love to see more of us looking after our tools and learning how to keep them sharp. We have built our own dedicated repair bench in the Portobello tool library and have accumulated some pretty useful tools for repairing, renovating and sharpening, and there’s scope for more people doing this! There is a recent willingness in Colinton to learn these skills which is really positive and we’ll see where that leads to.

Important updates about your new workshop:New times, new space, new pricing

Important updates about your new workshop:
New times, new space, new pricing